1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, such as a copying machine, a printer, a facsimile machine, or a MFP (Multi Function Peripheral) which is a combined machine having multiple functions including a copying function, a printing function, a scanner function and a facsimile function, for example.
2. Description of Related Art
The following description sets forth the inventor's knowledge of related art and problems therein and should not be construed as an admission of knowledge in the prior art.
For example, the aforementioned MFP is equipped with various consumption articles such as a photosensitive element, a fixing roller and a toner cartridge in an exchangeable manner.
These consumption articles once come to the end of their lives, they become a non-usable state (hereinafter may be referred to as “life”). Therefore, for the purpose of advising the user to replace the consumption article with new one, a conventional apparatus detects the status in which the consumption article came to near the end of the life but is still in a usable state (hereinafter may be referred to as “near life”) and displays the status on the display portion thereof to give an alarm for the replacement against the user.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Laid-open Publication H6-138768 A discloses a technique for assuredly detecting whether a toner as a consumption article has come to the empty state to give an advance notice of the toner empty without fail.
Irrespective of such conventional technique, despite the advance notice of the replacement of the consumption article that has reached its near life, the apparatus can be used continuously until the consumption article has finally reached the life without requesting the user to perform a specific operation. Therefore, it was difficult to make the user recognize the necessity of the early replacement of the consumption article.
The description herein of advantages and disadvantages of various features, embodiments, methods, and apparatus disclosed in other publications is in no way intended to limit the present invention. Indeed, certain features of the invention may be capable of overcoming certain disadvantages, while still retaining some or all of the features, embodiments, methods, and apparatus disclosed therein.